U.N. Petition For Peace - Please Sign

[TerryKickstrom]

Hello folks!

I received the following and went to the petitioning site.
This is all legit and being sent to the United Nations on Thursday.
If you are against war in the middle east and want the U.N. to find a peaceful solution to the problems there, please read the following and then go to the link at the end to sign up for the petition.

Time IS of the essence on this one folks.
Now is not the moment to pause, now is the time to act.
War or peace - it's your call as much as anyone elses.

========================================================

THE PETITION LETTER

TO: The Members of the U.N. Security Council
SUBJECT: Tough Inspections, Not War
__________

Dear Member of the U.N. Security Council,

We are citizens from countries all over the world. We are speaking together because we will all be affected by a decision in which your country has a major part -- the decision of how to disarm Iraq.

The first reason for its existence listed in the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations is "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind." If your country supports a Security Council resolution that would authorize a war on Iraq, you will directly contradict that charter. You will be supporting an unnecessary war -- a war which immediately, and in its unknown consequences, could bring "untold sorrow to mankind" once again.

The U.N. was created to enable peaceful alternatives to conflict. The weapons inspections under way are a perfect example of just such an alternative, and their growing success is a testament to the potential power the U.N. holds. By supporting tough inspections instead of war, you can show the world a real way to resolve conflict without bloodshed. But if you back a war, it will undermine the very premise upon which the U.N. was built.

President Bush argues that only by endorsing a war on Iraq can the United Nations prove its relevance. We argue the opposite. If the Security Council allows itself to be completely swayed by one member nation, in the face of viable alternatives, common sense and world public opinion, then it will be diminished in its role, effectiveness, and in the opinion of humankind.

We do not support this war. For billions of citizens in hundreds of countries, and for the future generations whose lives will be shaped by the choice you make, we ask that you stand firm against the pressuring of the Bush Administration, and support tough inspections for Iraq. The eyes of the world are on you.

Sincerely,
[Number] citizens of the world.
To stand up and be counted on the side of peace go here:
http://www.moveon.org/emergency/

 

[TerryKickstrom]

P.S. If you post replies to this thread it will stay at the top of the forum here for all to see. So have your say as well about this topic and let's keep it alive for others to see until the deadline on Thursday.
TK

 

[April]

What if I'm for war? Where the fuck's MY petition? Huh?

Damn it.

 

[Linedrive]

Peace is the desire for all men, I wish Hussein would comply.


edited to add: and women so I don't get attacked

 

[TerryKickstrom]

What if I'm for war? Where the fuck's MY petition? Huh?
Damn it.

Then I guess you're S.O.L. darlin'
Better hunting next time.
TK

 

[KillerMuffin]

One does wonder how you intend to accomplish these "tougher inspections for Iraq" without the use of force.

Answer me that with something that's actually plausible enough to work, and I'll be far more inclined to float my stick with the anti-Bush crowd.

 

[April]

Don't call me "darlin' ", sweetcheeks-o-love.

 

[patient1]

One does wonder how you intend to accomplish these "tougher inspections for Iraq" without the use of force.

Answer me that with something that's actually plausible enough to work, and I'll be far more inclined to float my stick with the anti-Bush crowd.

I was wondering that myself. They've only begun to work since the armies began massing in the region.

 

[TerryKickstrom]

Peace is the desire for all men, I wish Hussein would comply.
edited to add: and women so I don't get attacked

I would have to agree about the peace. Hussein will comply.
What I wish is that Bush would back off on his cowboy, hooting, tooting, axis of terror crappola and get with the program, instead of insisting on this unilateral Rambo shit which will only get a LOT of Americans and others killed in a very big way. Sept 11th will look like a hang nail compared to the international fall out from an attack on Iraq.

 

[Linedrive]

One does wonder how you intend to accomplish these "tougher inspections for Iraq" without the use of force.

 

[April]

The thing is, people want to believe the inspections will work. That they'll work on good faith alone. Many simply don't want to face the reality that they can't and won't work without the threat of force to back them up. And that defeats the whole purpose of disarmament inspections. The inspections were meant to be just that, inspections after the fact, to verify that Iraq has indeed disarmed. But since it hasn't, the inspections are violating their stated purpose, and being used as an adhoc disarmament committee.


Okay, now I'll go back to randomly insulting people.

 

[TerryKickstrom]

One does wonder how you intend to accomplish these "tougher inspections for Iraq" without the use of force.

Answer me that with something that's actually plausible enough to work, and I'll be far more inclined to float my stick with the anti-Bush crowd.

I can only answer that by asking a question:

Give me the real reason behind the unilateral desire of the Bush Administration to go to war with Iraq [and quite possibly North Korea] and I think we'll both find a peaceful solution to the problem.

 

[pop_54]

Hmm

If Bush senior and co had listened to the guys doing the fighting last time, Gulf War, Sadham would have been topped by the SAS and we wouldn't be having this conversation now.

 

[Guest]

 

[Linedrive]

Give me the real reason behind the unilateral desire of the Bush Administration to go to war with Iraq [and quite possibly North Korea] and I think we'll both find a peaceful solution to the problem.

Saddam Hussein is not complying, to think he is disarming is being oblivious to the truth. For the last two weeks Blix has been saying that "inspections have provided very little results", or that "Saddam Hussein has no credibility." Blix knows the Iraqi's are not complying, they are playing a little game. He's under pressure not to give a them a big fat F on their cooperation in his report.

Are you under the opinion that the little bit of concessions they dribble out is disarming...?

 

[patient1]

I can only answer that by asking a question:

Give me the real reason behind the unilateral desire of the Bush Administration to go to war with Iraq [and quite possibly North Korea] and I think we'll both find a peaceful solution to the problem.

I don't know the "real reason" of any person or government for their position on
the pending war with any certainty, save for my own. I don't know the reasons from the rationalizations, or the priorities.


Just suppose we take the president at face value. " They're the Axis of Evil".
What solution would you propose?

 

[Gil_Favor]

Petition for peace? What fucking planet do you live on? Did Saddam sign the petition?

 

[Lasher]

This from snopes.com:

Claim: Signing and circulating online petitions is an effective way of remedying important issues.

Status: False.

Origins: These past few years have seen the birth of an Internet phenomenon: the e-petition. It offers instant comfort to those outraged by the latest ills of the world through its implicit assurance that affixing their names to a statement decrying a situation and demanding change will make a difference. That assurance is a severely flawed one for a multitude of reasons.

Often petitions contain no information about whom they are ultimately intended for and instead are no more than outpourings of outrage. Expressions of outrage are fine and good, but if they don't reach someone who can have impact on the core problem, they're wasted. Thus, a petition that doesn't clearly identify the intended recipient may have some small value as a way for its signers to work off angst, but as an instrument of social change it fails miserably.

Even those that clearly identify the intended recipient don't come with a guarantee that the person slated to receive the document is in any position to influence matters. A misdirected petition is of no more use than an undirected one -- though the voices it contains may be shouting, they won't be heard.

Even well-addressed, well-thought-out petitions have their problems, chief among them the lack of a guarantee that anyone is collecting and collating the signatures or will deliver the completed documents to the right parties. The mere existence of a petition doesn't warrant that anyone will do anything with it once it is completed.

Moreover, petitions aren't the instruments of social change we'd so dearly love to believe they are. Yes, a petition festooned with a zillion signatures can have some influence, but only as a tangible proof of a subset of public opinion, and only upon those whose welfare is dependent upon public opinion (eg. politicians). Those signatures aren't votes, and they aren't treated as such by the governing bodies that have to decide on the tough questions of our times. At best, they're seen as an indication of the public's will, no more.

Petitions calling for the erection of a firefighters memorial or to have next Thursday designated national performing arts day have some small hope of success, but all bets are off when the question becomes more complex ("Let's solve the problem of poverty in the USA") or when acts taking place on foreign soil are the subject of the angst ("Let's end child rape in South Africa"). Difficult problems don't suddenly yield up simple solutions just because a great many fervently hope they would, nor do foreign governments feel impelled to change conditions in their countries just because folks in other lands are upset by them.

All of the above applies to hand-signed and cyber petitions alike. E-petitions, however, have one further shortcoming inherent to them that entirely undercut any value the same documents might have had in paper-and-ink form.

Paper-and-ink petitions are signed in a variety of handwriting styles, each unique to its signer. Consequently, signatures on a paper-and-ink petition cannot easily be faked else certain glaring similarities would show up in one entry after another.

E-petitions, however, come with no such assurance -- the same person could have generated all of the signatures. Moreover, it takes little by way of programming skills to create a sequence of code that will randomly generate fake names, e-mail addresses, and cities (or whatever combination of same the e-petition calls for). Once written, such a program can be executed with a keystroke, resulting in the effortless generation of thousands upon thousands of "signatures."

Those in a position to influence anything know this and thus accord e-petitions only slightly more respect than they would a blank sheet of paper. Thus, even the best written, properly addressed, and lovingly delivered e-petitions whose every signature was scrupulously vetted by the petition's creator fall into the same vortex of disbelief at the receiving end that less carefully shepherded missives find themselves relegated to.

Okay, so the average e-petition isn't ultimately worth the pixels it took to create it -- why are they so popular?

In a world beset by complex problems, the solutions of which will take enormous amounts of time, money, and commitment, such simplification as the e-petition provides a welcome relief. Imagine having the power to solve those problems! Moreover, imagine having it merely at the click of a mouse!

Such is the appeal. A sense of powerlessness and lack of control over events played out on the grand scale becomes replaced by the certainty that real change can be brought about at the cost of no more effort than it takes to type a few characters on a keyboard, just enough to display one's name on a growing list of equally committed cyber activists. Through the magic of the e-petition, those left feeling like bystanders to important events are transformed into powerful agents for social change. It's heady stuff.

It's also illusion.

E-petitions are the latest manifestation of slacktivism, the search for the ultimate feel-good that derives from having come to society's rescue without having had to actually gets one's hands dirty or open one's wallet. It's slacktivism that prompts us to forward appeals for business cards on behalf of a dying child intent upon having his name recorded in the Guinness World Book of Records or exhortations to others to continue circulating a particular e-mail because some big company has supposedly promised that every forward will generate monies for the care of a particular dying child. Likewise, it's slacktivism that prompts us to want a join a boycott of designated gas companies or eschew buying gasoline on a particular day rather than reduce our personal consumption of fossil fuels by driving less and taking the bus more often. Slacktivism comes in many forms (and there are many other illustrations of it on this web site; our goal was merely to offer a few examples rather than provide a definitive list), but its key defining characteristic is its central theme of doing good with little or no effort on the part of person inspired to participate in the forwarding, exhorting, collecting, or e-signing.

For many, e-petitions satisfy the need to feel they are doing good and thus somewhat quell that nagging feeling they should be doing more to make the world a better place. As such, they serve a purpose as an outlet -- those who "sign" such missives experience a personal sense of accomplishment in tandem with the warming sensation of having come to society's aid. Good feels like it has been done in two directions -- the signature helping a worthy cause, and the act of signing helping the person who was moved to add his name to the petition. E-petitions are sexy even when they don't have a hope in hell of helping to accomplish their stated goals because they afford us an opportunity to bestow upon ourselves a pat on the back rather than continue to feel guilty about not doing our part. That nothing is really getting accomplished is almost beside the point; we believe we've been part of something worthwhile and so feel better about ourselves.

Because e-petitions are as popular as they are, a number of web sites have sprung up to service the interest in them. That these web sites exist doesn't impart to the lowly cyber petition any more credibility than it previously had, nor does it imbue it with any more power to effect change. The presence of web sites devoted to them (even well-constructed authoritative-looking ones) changes nothing about e-petitions' inherent shortcomings. Those tempted to confuse the appearance of legitimacy with legitimacy itself should keep in mind that many a mark has been conned out of his life's savings by a smooth talker who had a fancy, seemingly well-staffed office and impressive letterhead. Looks ain't everything.

We're not going to offer an opinion on whether one site or another is legitimate (ie. the petitions it houses are actually delivered to those they were intended for and all the "signatures" visitors provide are actually appended to them). Those questions are far better directed by interested readers to the sites themselves. Rather, we're going to acquaint our readers with one further point they might not otherwise be taking into consideration.

Many of these sites display banner ads that generate revenues for the sites' operators. That means every time someone visits to view or sign a petition, the site's owners earn revenue. This happens whether or not there are any real petitions, whether or not any petitions are delivered to their stated recipients, whether or not the "signatures" collected are appended to them, whether or not only the "signatures" collected are appended (versus the site's owners adding to the list names they have generated). An entirely bogus petition site will make money for its owners just as well as a real one would because revenue is dependent on how many visit the site, not upon how many petitions are completed and delivered to the named recipients, nor upon how useful cyber petitions are.

Granted, a great many sites (e-petition and otherwise, such as this one) carry advertising banners, and granted, the revenues gained through that are often the only thing that keeps those sites operating. The presence of ads doesn't indicate anything about the quality or integrity of a site that bears them, but that those ads are there should be taken into consideration when musing "Does this site exist for the purpose I would otherwise think it does?"

No matter what else can be said against cyber petitions (and so far we've said a great deal), they do serve one actual valuable purpose: They can sometimes be useful tools with which to acquaint folks with situations they might otherwise have little, if any, knowledge of. For instance, in those days prior to the September 11 attacks and the subsequent war on the Taliban, a cyber petition decrying the condition of women in Afghanistan worked to enlighten many as to what was going on half a world away. That the premise of the petition was horribly flawed ("If only the Taliban knew they were doing a bad thing, they'd stop") doesn't change that it worked to bring information to people.

Of course, that same valid purpose could be better served by essays circulated on the Internet. Essays, at least, don't foster this growing climate of slacktivism, of participation at no cost, of lasting social change achieved through no effort.

Those truly committed to righting the wrongs of the world are encouraged to take pen in hand and craft actual letters to their congressmen or to whomever they deem are the appropriate people to contact about particular issues. Real letters (the kind that are written in a person's own words and are sent through the regular mail) are accorded far more respect than form letters (let alone petitions), and that should be kept in mind by those intent upon being heard. Yes, the effort it takes is far larger. But so is the potential for making an actual difference.

 

[JazzManJim]

Make you a deal. I'll sign under one condition. Given the state of your optimism, it shouldn't be tough.

1) You get the million and a half Iraqis murdered by Saddam Hussein and the people curretnly under "medical experimentation" to sign.

 

[TerryKickstrom]

The thing is, people want to believe the inspections will work. That they'll work on good faith alone. Many simply don't want to face the reality that they can't and won't work without the threat of force to back them up. And that defeats the whole purpose of disarmament inspections. The inspections were meant to be just that, inspections after the fact, to verify that Iraq has indeed disarmed. But since it hasn't, the inspections are violating their stated purpose, and being used as an adhoc disarmament committee.
Okay, now I'll go back to randomly insulting people.

April - Everyone [well most everyone except the warmongers] want to believe in the process. Want to believe that the inspections will work. And the *threat* of force *has* to be in place with certain people like Saddam - I agree. And the threats and the U.N. pressure seems to be working. Missles are being destroyed everyday and the Iraqi government is becoming more forethcoming in their answers on locations, but this is not going to happen in the time frame that Bush wants. The rest of the world would like to keep working at a peaceful resolution, hence the French, Russians, etc., not wanting to back a war at this time.

 

[TerryKickstrom]

Re: Hmm

If Bush senior and co had listened to the guys doing the fighting last time, Gulf War, Sadham would have been topped by the SAS and we wouldn't be having this conversation now.

pop_54 - Agreed, but he didn't and it's 12 years later and you can't turn back the clock just because daddy's son is in power. And if the Bush family thinks that they can, then they've lost more of their minds than most people even realize.

 

[TerryKickstrom]

Make you a deal. I'll sign under one condition. Given the state of your optimism, it shouldn't be tough.
1) You get the million and a half Iraqis murdered by Saddam Hussein and the people curretnly under "medical experimentation" to sign.

JazzManJim - ludicrous and unrealistic even in the use of rhetoric this is just plain assinine. Might as well just bury your head in the sand.

 

[TerryKickstrom]

This from snopes.com:

Claim: Signing and circulating online petitions is an effective way of remedying important issues.

Status: False.

Lasher - This position is a whine that says "nothing works help ensure peace, nothing works help ensure peace". Oh please, plesae understand that we has human being have only one choice - follow our leaders blindly into the hell of war and innocent slaughter and then make up war hero stories and movies about it all so we can forget what we actually did.

 

[TerryKickstrom]

Petition for peace? What fucking planet do you live on? Did Saddam sign the petition?

Gil_Favor - We aren't asking Saddam to be peaceful. As a matter of fact he's been quite peaceful all along. He's not the one who declared this war and the U.S. doesn't have the unilateral right to declare one either. The U.N. was formed to keep the peace. How they see fit to do so is up to them and should be recognized, not ignored, be each and all countries who are members of the U.N. To date I have not seen Saddam Hussein make one single statement or overt act of war against the United States.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I was wondering that myself. They've only begun to work since the armies began massing in the region.

Thats not exactly true. I was reading the other day (and when I find a link I'll edit this post) that showed how more Iraqi weapons were destroyed as a result of inspections and sanctions than in the entire Gulf War.